How to engage with your teenage D/S during this???

[JustStunned]

So my daughter is a little older now. When she was 14 she was going through a lot of issues about who/what she was. Conventional society, her mother and I did not contribute positively to her perception of herself. Avoid that, use your DB skills and find ways to genuinely praise her. Find ways to build her self esteem. We all like to do things because we are relatively good at them and those accomplishments provide us with positive feedback, become part of that.

Find things to do that she sees value in. Teach little skills she will see value in. We just recently painted a couple of rooms. She did one, I the other. She is self aware enough to see where she could have done a better job. There is no need for me to point it out. What I did point out is what went right, what she takes pride in.

There is a toilet valve to change, she’ll do it. I’ll give advice and kibitz. She can dive a manual shift, change her own tires, knows how oil and filter are changed, knows how to jumpstart a car. These are all little skills that improve her opinion of her self reliance. I know this is beyond the norm for popular society, but each of my children have hunted and prepped small game for consumption.

I was very proud (and expressed it) of her after she negotiated the purchase of her latest vehicle by herself on her own initiative.

I have to laugh “Zombie Apocalypse” as I now know the rules of survival like double tap, seatbelts, and cardio. Interestingly enough she and I have been to the range, and she is asking for return trips as learning to shoot a rifle and pistol is fun. We joke with each other that these will become important skills when the ZA occurs.

She is headed to morph a con, and I know more about the Power Rangers than I thought possible. Along with that, The Avengers, Hunger Games, Dr Who, Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood. We mourned the passing of Bradbury recently. She is interested in watching SOA since learning the base storyline is Shakespearian in nature.

IMO it is all a matter of finding how their interests mesh with your own and helping them build their self esteem along the way.